holidays - part two

For us to go away twice over a two week period is almost unheard of. After our three nights away on the West Coast, and we've just had three nights in Golden Bay.  Golden Bay is surprisingly close to home, from our house to the bach (kiwi for holiday home) we rent at Patons Rock takes less than 1 1/2 hours. Over half of that journey is over the Takaka Hill which is quite an epic journey up and down, and around numerous corners, which makes us think it's further than it is. The last time we went was here at the end of the summer holidays in February. Each time we return to the same beach and the same bach.

Right I'm going to keep this brief, and let the photos do the talking......

Close to home, about 10 minutes into the journey. I often pass this old apple packing shed, and love the reflections when the tide is in. For once I wasn't driving, so could snap this out of the car window!

At the beach, there are not many people but the local horse trainer brings his horses down when the tide is out.

The hubby and my friend's hubby watching the kids kayak, and chewing the fat!

Miss L wondering why her friend is going for a swim in October!

The beach has lovely shells to collect.

Fishing at Tarakohe Wharf.

Cute wee boat at Tarakohe Wharf.

Bush walk.

Labyrinth Rocks.

Badminton on the front lawn.

The house we stay in is almost retro, in an 1980s sort of a way! It used to be a permanent home before it became a bach (holiday home). The owners have done some modernising, but mostly it's original. It one of the reasons we like coming here, because it isn't pretentious, and feels homely and relaxed. But if I owned it I'd go all out on the retro - as in 1960-70s, I can remember the 80s to well to want to relive that era!

A peach exterior with new deck and doors out of the bedrooms.

The pink and grey bathroom is straight from 1984!

A kina (sea anemone) hanging in the lounge.

A map of Golden Bay in the dining area.

But the piece de resistance has to be the carpet, in all it's amazing technicoloured-ness.

Yes that is a wet deck there. We were lucky with three beautiful sunny and warm days, but on Tuesday as we packed up to go home the rain came. When we got home we had to light the fire, something I don't think we'd done for over two weeks. This morning the snow was quite low on the mountains again. Ah, the fickleness of spring.

One of last week's sunrises from our front lawn.

While I enjoyed our time away, three days was enough for me. I've finally realised I don't find it easy to relax and do nothing when on holiday. I didn't pack any crafty stuff, and found that I was itching to be creative. Next time I need to be better prepared. I'm also a bit of a homebody, and miss all the animals. Especially as we were expecting new arrivals in the chook house.Thankfully my sister stayed at our house for two nights and looked after all the animals and reported on developments, which I'll report on in another post.

holidays - part one

It's the school holidays again, and we have a two trips planned - here's part one. On Saturday we got up bright and early and drove to Greymouth. It was a quick trip at that time of the morning, so three hours later we were getting ready for the first of Miss L's dances at the competitions.

L danced five times over three days, and blew us away by winning her demi-character, barefoot, jazz, jazz championship and the most promising ballet dancer under 12 years of age. All that nagging to get her to practice was worth it!

As the dancing was spread out it gave us time to catch up with friends, drive down to Hokitika for lunch, take the kids to the swimming pool and visit a local beach. I even got some op-shopping in!

With the hubby taking a couple of days off, we had a  leisurely drive home yesterday. The weather was warm and summery, so we played at being tourists.

First stop was at Punakaiki to see the Pancake Rocks. A few metres into the walk we came across a weka family, the chicks were the cutest little fluff balls. I never get tired of taking photos of the nikau palms either.

The high tide meant that we actually got to see the blowhole blowing - not something you see everyday.

The rock formations at Pancake Rocks are quite unusual, but with a low battery I didn't take many photos.

After a quick coffee and a wander around the craft shop we were back on the road. Next stop was a small beach at Fox River, which is a favourite of mine. It's featured before here.

Before we got to Westport we took a detour to Tauranga Bay to visit the seal colony. It's a short walk to the viewing area, and you can smell the seals before you see them.

At first it's actually quite hard to spot them, as they are camouflaged against the rocks. But once you start looking you see more and more. They don't all lie around asleep, some were chasing each other, while others hopped from rock to rock. The photos below all have three seals in them, some are harder to spot than others.

After that we stopped in Westport for lunch (and more op shops) and were home by 3 to check all our animals hadn't forgotten us. Part one of the holidays is over, now I'm looking forward to this coming weekend's adventure.

adventure close to home

Yesterday I was doing my early morning read on the internet, when I was thought; why am I reading about what other people are getting up to on their holidays instead of getting out there and doing it?! So the two that were still in bed (our family is split 50/50 between early and late risers) were told to get up and get moving! Sometimes the chores just have to wait.

The night before we had friends over for dinner and we had talked about Harwoods Hole. I thought I'd been there with the hubby, but it turns out he'd never been. So it's been over 20 years since I last went. Maybe the drive had put me off,  because it seemed so far away then, but it only took us an hour to get to the carpark. Part of the road is quite windy as you drive from sea level to 790 metres at the top of the Takaka Hill quite quickly. The views are amazing, but we didn't stop, we were on a mission. From the turnoff to the parking area is 11 kilometres of narrow dirt road, it was not as bumpy as I'd remembered, but was quite slushy from the frost.

Yes the warning signs are needed. Maybe that's why we hadn't gone before as it's not a place to take young children. Maybe from 8 or 9 years up depending on how good they are at listening to their parents!  It was quite cold  in the beech forest, and we came across two frozen ponds. It was great fun to skim rocks across one, listening to the echoes as the stone hit the ice was magical. 

It is a 45 minute walk to Harwoods Hole, the first 30 minutes are very easy walking as the terrain is flat, then more limestone boulders start appearing and the vegetation became denser. The last scramble was quite hard as the rocks were icy, I went very s-l-o-w-l-y. It was almost an anticlimax as the kids expected a viewing platform and to be able to see into the hole, all 183 metres of it! But what you see is the rocks around it, it's 50 metres across, and you know there's a very deep hole in front of you, it's the deepest vertical shaft in NZ, and connects to a very long caving system. My memory from my previous trips was that you could get closer, and at least stand on flat ground, but that would have been in summer when you didn't need to worry about slipping.

After the anticlimax I was able to say the next bit is better! We went onto the Gorge Creek Lookout, it was a 10 minute steep hike up, until coming to this amazing area of very sharp limestone rocks. Over the edge is an incredible view down, down, down.

Unfortunately I didn't quite make it to the edge to look over! Twenty years ago I was slightly nimbler and my fear of heights can't have been messing with my head, so I was happy to pass the camera over to the kids. There's even a very rare photo of me, looking remarkably cheerful while sitting on razor sharp rocks. Thankfully they didn't take a photo of me crawling around them on all fours!

While it was nice to be in the warm sunshine, we were getting a bit hungry by this stage, so we set off back to the car and our lunch. Stopping again for more stone skipping on the frozen pond. The pies we had brought almost three hours earlier in Motueka were still slightly warm, and were delicious. As was the warm sun on our backs.

While having our lunch a tomtit was having his too, as he flew from fencepost to fencepost, occasionally swooping down to grab something from the grass. We also saw a South Island Robin, but I was unable to get a photo of it. We heard lots of bellbirds but unfortunately didn't see them.

If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, you might recognise this area, as the Canaan Downs was used in the filming. Don't ask me which bit because I must be one of the only people in NZ who hasn't watched the trilogy. Does that make me a philistine?

All this and we home by 3pm so there was still time to do some chores, including washing the car! Sometimes we have to remember that we can have an adventure close to home, that holidays don't need to involve getting on an aeroplane, and that the simplest things in life are often the best.